


M.I.I (Missing In Inaction)

by NecklaceOfDiamondsAndPearls



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Missing Persons, Steven Universe: The Movie Spoilers, mentions of White Diamond/Yellow Diamond - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-11-02 01:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NecklaceOfDiamondsAndPearls/pseuds/NecklaceOfDiamondsAndPearls
Summary: “This has all been a complete waste of time! Yellow and Spinel can be anywhere by now and we’re stuck here following a dead end!”Steven shook his head, trying to rid himself of the annoying dampness that covered his face. “Blue! Crying isn’t going to make this go any faster. Calm down!”The azure gem only cried harder.Set one year after the events of Steven Universe: The Movie; Yellow, Blue, and Spinel visit Earth. The only problem? Yellow and Spinel are missing after wondering off on their own.





	M.I.I (Missing In Inaction)

**Author's Note:**

> Am I over the idea of Yellow and Blue being moms to Spinel? No. No I'm not.
> 
> Just in case you missed it in the tags, this work contains minor spoilers for Steven Universe: The Movie. Read with caution ^-^

“Blue… I really want to help you, but it’s kinda hard to look around with tears in my eyes.”

“Oh, Steven… I’m sorry. I’m just so worried!”

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll find them! Besides, Yellow would be really hard to miss.” Steven gave a bright smile as he wiped his eyes, trying his best to lift the azure gem’s spirits.

“That’s true...” Blue sniffled. “She’s far too beautiful.”

“And far too big!” A voice from above shouted. Swooping down on a pair of water wings, Lapis Lazuli set her feet on the ground and greeted Steven and Blue with a bored expression.

“Hey, Lapis!” Steven chuckled, happy that someone got his joke. “Any news about Yellow and Spinel from Little Homeworld?”

“Bismuth said they warped there for a few minutes, but apparently they left to go check out the barn.”

“The barn? Why would they go to the barn? Are they still there?”

Lapis shrugged, “I don’t know why they went. But when I warped there, they had already gone somewhere else. Peridot was there, though. She said she was giving them a tour and then they just left without warning.”

Steven barely resisted the urge to groan. “Okay… is Peridot at the barn right now?”

Lapis nodded her head and Steven gave a sigh of relief. Turning to tug at Blue’s skirts, he led the giant woman back towards the warp they had just exited. “Let’s go see Peridot. Since she was the last to speak to them, maybe she has an idea where they went.”

“Very well.” Blue pouted, lifting Steven into her hand as she stepped on the warp. “But… what is a barn?”

As they arrived on the grassy field leading to the barn, Steven jumped from her hand and floated safely to the ground. “Remember last time you visited, and we went to that petting zoo?”

“That place with all the four-legged organics?”

“Yeah! Well, sometimes humans keep those types of animals in a house just for them. We call those houses barns.”

“How disgusti- um… How odd! Wouldn’t they be more comfortable out in the wilderness? And why would Yellow and Spinel come to such a place?”

Steven opened his mouth to answer, but got distracted as a green and silver blur screamed passed him.

“Oh my gosh! Peridot! Are you okay?”

The little gem groaned before pushing herself into a seated position and giving a weak thumbs up. “Never better. I just like to make an entrance.”

Grasping her hand, Steven helped her stand up straight before picking up the garbage can lid and giving it to her. “Careful. You might get so caught up in making an entrance that you actually forget how to ride this thing.” He teased.

“As if! I rule the skies! That was just an accident!”

Steven couldn’t help laughing as Peridot snatched the lid from his hands. “I’m just kidding!”

The sound of a throat being cleared brought him back to the task at hand. 

Flashing Blue a nervous smile, Steven cleared his own throat. “Hey, Peridot? Lapis told us that Yellow and Spinel were here just awhile ago. Do you know where they went?”

“Hm? Yellow and Spinel? Oh yeah!” Peridot looked up from polishing her lid. “I don’t know where they went, but when they came here, Spinel said it was because Bismuth kept talking about how Lapis and I should make some Meep Morps for Little Homeworld. And Spinel wanted to see what a Meep Morp was, so she had Yellow warp out here with her to look around.”

“Oh, she just wanted to see your art? Well then, maybe Spinel also wanted to see what other artists Beach City had to offer. Come on, Blue! We can start looking for Yellow and Spinel at the gallery downtown!”

“Wait a minute!” Peridot shouted, grabbing the back of Steven’s jacket. “First of all, Beach City may have many of these... _artists_ you speak of, but no one’s Meep Morps are better than mine and Lapis’. And secondly, it wasn’t the Meep Morps she was impressed with.”

“But you just sai-”

“Yeah, I know.” Peridot interrupted. “But while I was showing her the Meep Morps, Spinel started playing on Lapis’ hammock.”

Steven’s resolve finally broke and he felt himself about to snap at his friend. He was getting ready to ask just what the heck a hammock had to do with all this, but a certain Diamond beat him to it. The entire world seemed to turn a deep shade of navy as Blue let out a pitiful wail, Peridot and Steven’s eyes filling with tears.

“This has all been a complete waste of time! Yellow and Spinel can be anywhere by now and we’re stuck here following a dead end!”

Steven shook his head, trying to rid himself of the annoying dampness that covered his face. “Blue! Crying isn’t going to make this go any faster. Calm down!”

The azure gem only cried harder.

Through her sniffling, Peridot somehow managed a snort of laughter. “Aw jeez… I forgot how cranky she got whenever Yellow goes away.”

“She acted like this often?” Steven choked out around a sob.

“Oh yeah, all the time. Whenever Yellow went to start a new colony, or start a war, or just her extraction chamber… It’s like Blue couldn’t stand to be away from her for more than a second. It’s almost like she lov-”

Steven waited for Peridot to finish her thought but the small gem just stood there dumbfounded.

Finally she snapped out of her trance. 

Peridot rubbed her eyes dry and hopped up onto her lid, hovering at eye level with the Diamond. “Hey! Blue clod! Have you and Yellow clod really managed to keep a secret relationship for thousands of years?”

The navy color began to slowly ebb away as Blue stopped crying. But Steven’s relief was short-lived, the boy giving a frightened squeak at the glowering look on Blue’s face. Using his powers, Steven floated next to Peridot. “It’s just an old habit, Blue. She didn’t mean to call you a clod.”

“Yes I did!”

“Peridot!”

“What? Come on, Steven! What would _you_ call a gem who has been against the fraternization of others while being in a relationship themselves?”

Grabbing the handle of her lid, Steven managed to pull them both back onto the ground. Once standing on solid Earth, the half-gem took a deep breath before speaking slowly. “We can talk about that another time. We’ve got something a bit more important to worry about right now. What happened after Spinel started playing on Lapis’ hammock?”

“She asked what it was for, and I told her that’s where Lapis likes to sleep. Then she asked me what sleep was, and I told her it’s a human thing where they put on special appearance modifiers and lay still for six to eight hours while hallucinating vividly. She said something about sleep sounding more fun than the game she played in a garden and then she and Yellow warped away.”

"The garden... Spinel wouldn't go back there… would she?" Steven was talking to himself, but Peridot shrugged her shoulders anyway.

Sighing, Steven gave Peridot a swift hug before turning back to Blue. "We've got one more place to check. Come on!"

Before the half-gem could follow Blue back to the warp, another tug at his jacket stilled him. "Hey Steven! Can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

"Let Blue know that as the best Camp Pining Hearts compatibility matcher, I'd like to extend my services to the Diamonds and suggest that White and Yellow would be a far superior match. What with White Diamonds incredible abilities and Yellow's drive for success, they would make the perfect power coupl-"

"Goodbye, Peridot!"

* * *

An uneasy feeling settled itself inside Steven’s stomach as he and Blue stepped off the warp and into Pink’s garden. 

It was one place Steven had asked that no one go and help him clean up. He thought that the broken pillars and dead flowers would serve as a reminder that Rose Quartz was not the saint most Crystal Gems believed her to be. That no matter how good Rose’s intentions may have been, innocent bystanders were still caught in the crossfire of her recklessness. Steven had seen many Crystal Gems forgive his mother, but he wouldn’t give them the chance to forget. Rose wouldn’t be kept on a pedestal anymore.

As he stood in the garden now, however, Steven was afraid the still abandoned relic would agitate the gem who was kept an unforeseen prisoner here.

“Spinel? Spinel! Are you out there? Yellow?”

The answer Steven received was Blue’s voice shouting out for the two missing gems from the other side of the garden.

Frustration and worry had finally reached its peak and Steven found himself stomping his foot like a toddler as he yelled. “This isn’t funny anymore! Where are you?”

This time the only answer was Steven’s own voice echoing across the desolate land.

Looking down and noticing exactly where he was standing, Steven couldn’t help wondering how many times had Spinel said the same thing?

Dejected and tired from warping around Beach City, Steven sighed and sat on the hard ground; trying his best to figure out where else Yellow and Spinel could have gone. Blue sulked her way over to Steven, gracefully falling to her knees next to him and sniffling. “Another dead end.”

“I know.”

“That’s no surprise… Yellow hasn’t been here in ages.”

“Yellow used to come here?” Steven looked up at the azure gem in surprise.

“Yellow and I both, actually.” the corners of her lips twisted up into a sad smile. “This was our garden long before Pink’s. White would send us here whenever we were being particularly rambunctious.”

“I’m having a hard time imagining Yellow being rambunctious.” Steven chuckled.

For the first time that day, Blue laughed. A fit of giggles that brought tears of mirth to her eyes. “Understandable. But you should have seen her when she was just a gemling. Into everything, always mischievous. Once, she even interrupted a broadcast to Homeworld by singing the script White had written for her.”

Both of them broke out in howls of laughter.

"Now _that's_ something I can see Yellow doing." Steven smiled, but curiosity sobered his expression. "Hey, Blue? Why did you guys quit coming here?"

"That is… that's a long story."

Steven crossed his arms over his knees, resting his head atop them as he looked at Blue expectantly.

Blue sighed. “As much as White would use this place as a time-out spot for us, Yellow and I made this place our little haven away from the eyes of Homeworld. We would sneak off here just to talk, play games, tell secrets… One day, Yellow begged me to warp here with her; saying that she stumbled across something during her daily walk around the city beyond the palace. And she just _had_ to tell me about it away from listening ears.”

“What was it? What did she find?” Steven unconsciously leaned forward.

“Two gems, she told me, a Ruby and Pearl had possibly discovered a new form of fusion. When I asked her why she didn’t go to White with this information first; she said because they looked like they were hiding. They were behind a spire when she found them, but they seemed so happy that Yellow didn’t want to risk them getting into trouble.”

Steven gasped before whispering to himself. “Rhodonite?”

“What?”

“Nevermind. So... that was the first time Yellow saw two different gems form into a fusion?”

Blue giggled. “Not quite. I asked her to show me what she saw them doing, and… She kissed me. She had stumbled upon a private moment, and by accident created one of our own.”

“A type of moment that wasn’t allowed…” It finally clicked in Steven’s mind. “That’s why Peridot was so shocked at the idea of you and Yellow being a couple.”

“A couple of what?”

“No, no.” Steven smiled, trying his best not to laugh. “I mean, a pair. You and Yellow being together. Romantically. Instead of just for functionality. Those types of relationships were frowned upon back in the day. Even for a Diamond?”

“Especially for a Diamond.” Blue nodded.

Standing up to stretch his legs, Steven asked, “Then, wouldn’t that make this place even more important for you to visit? A chance for you and Yellow to get some time alone?”

“We tried. But we got older. The rules got more stringent. We became hopeless. The last time we came here was right after Pink emerged. We were so excited to have a new Diamond join our ranks. I spent hours chattering about how much fun we would have. What we could teach her. How we could love her.”

“You were excited to be a mom… For you and Yellow both to be moms.”

Blue stood up, brushing off her skirts. “Is it even possible to be excited over something you don’t know how to be?”

“A Ruby can love a Pearl, and a Diamond can love a Diamond. So I’d say anything is possible.”

“And yet we still didn’t do a good job.”

“No one did a _good job_ with the old empire, Blue.” Steven jumped, floating down to gently land on the azure gem’s shoulder. “But things have changed. You have changed.”

“So have you.” A real smile that reached Blue’s eyes brightened her face as she nuzzled Steven with her cheek. “Although your outlook remains stubbornly positive.”

“Because I refuse to let my happily ever after go. It’s worth fighting for. Now, let’s go find yours.”

* * *

Taking one last run through Beach City with no luck, Steven and Blue decided it would be best to return to the temple and see if Yellow and Spinel had come back from whatever excursion they had gone on. Steven rounded the bend towards his home and saw that Yellow wasn’t in her usual spot by the lighthouse, sighing in defeat.

“Okay, Blue. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Let’s go see if Garnet is home and ca- I’m an idiot!”

“Steven! Don’t say such things!”

Tugging on her skirts, Steven pulled her to the gargantuan golden hand that was docked right beside Blue’s own ship. “Each ship of yours are connected to your gems, right? That’s how you control it. Then Yellow’s ship would be able to pinpoint her gem and tell us where she is!”

Blue activated the bubble that would transport them inside, letting Steven jump into her hand before stepping into the palm of the ship.

Steven’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the suddenly dim light around him. From behind, he heard Blue gasp; and once he could see what she was looking at, he did too.

The captain’s seat had been positioned at an angle, a footrest extending out from underneath it like a recliner. In the seat was Yellow Diamond, her eyes closed and face more lax than Steven ever remembered seeing it. Atop Yellow’s gem was Spinel, knees curled up to her chest and one arm under her head.

“What... what’s wrong with them?” Blue whispered, fear shaking her form.

“They’re… asleep.” Steven murmured as relief bloomed in his heart. “They’ll be fine. Let’s go, I’ll explai-”

“You don’t have to go.” Spinel’s small voice carried over the hum of gem machinery. “This is a pretty boring game, anyway. Maybe it’s because I don’t have those appearance thingies Peridot was talking about?”

Steven stifled his laugh as he hopped from Blue’s hand and approached the captain’s seat with silent footfalls. “Sleeping is a very human thing to do, but gems can get the hang of it. Looks like Yellow is already a master. How long has she been resting?”

“Hm… an hour? Five minutes? Sorry, Steven. But after six thousand years, time becomes meaningless.”

“Fair enough.” Steven raised his hands in mock defeat. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you guys. I’m glad you’re both okay!”

“Are you sure they are, Steven?” Blue asked, pressing a button on one of many control panels and summoning a seat next to Yellow’s. She quietly made her way to the seat before fretting over Spinel, using a fingertip to lift the small gem’s head and scanning her face for any injuries. Blue’s hands twitched, seemingly itching to check Yellow as well, but not wanting to interrupt the rare moment of peace her fellow Diamond had managed to find. “Nothing out of the way happened while you two were warping around, did it?”

Spinel shook her head. “Everything was swell! We would have been back sooner, but Yellow really seemed to like this game. I kept her company.”

Blue nodded even as her brows furrowed in confusion and she looked at Yellow. “Such a strange ritual. Do humans partake in this often?”

“Every night.” Steven flashed a proud smile.

Spinel giggled. “If you think _that’s_ strange, you should _hear_ what happens during sleep.”

As if on cue, Yellow’s form began to shift and look for a more comfortable position. Spinel couldn’t help her quiet squeal of excitement. “Oh, oh, oh! Wait for it!”

The noise was faint, and if Steven didn’t know what he was listening for, he might have missed it. 

A soft snore escaped Yellow.

Spinel and Steven both covered their mouths to muffle their laughter.

“Gee, isn’t she cute?” Spinel seemed to gush as she lay back down on Yellow’s gem.

Steven took Blue’s gentle kiss to Yellow’s cheek as agreement.

The half-gem stood there for a moment, taking in the sight of Yellow totally at ease, and the two other gems conversing excited but quietly about sleep. Spinel pondered what other human rituals she could rope Yellow into trying, and Blue promised to let her and Yellow try them all; as long as they promised to be safe. It was a sweet moment… A private moment… And Steven couldn’t help but think of Rhodonite. 

Steven turned to leave, and he had just made it back to the exit of Yellow’s ship when a soft whisper of his name made him turn around.

“You aren’t heading out now, are you? We just found them.” Blue smiled, hope seeming to sparkle in her cerulean gaze.

Maybe he could give her something better to hope for.

“I know… but I just remembered that I wanted to go visit a friend. A Ruby and a Pearl. Why don’t you go on ahead and stay here? Yellow will want to see you when she wakes up.”

Blue’s smile fell, but she nodded. “Alright. But please come see us before we have to leave?”

“Sure thing! And Blue?” Steven asked, placing his hand comfortingly on her skirts.

“Yes?”

“For what it’s worth… I think you’re gonna make a great mom. You and Yellow both.” His gaze flitted to the serene picture Spinel and Yellow made while curled up together.

The tears that filled Steven and Blue’s eyes were, for the first time that day, their own; and happy.

**Author's Note:**

> The internet can be a vast and lonely place, so come on over and kick it with me on [tumblr!](https://necklaceofdiamondsandpearls.tumblr.com/)


End file.
